Anker Soundcore Motion 300  Speaker Review

The Anker Soundcore Motion 300 is a portable Bluetooth speaker designed for on-the-go listening. It has a solid, rugged look with the distinct Soundcore logo on the front. There's a detachable nylon strap, so you can clip it to your bag, too.

This small, lightweight speaker is easy to bring wherever you go. It's battery-powered, so you don't need to plug it into an outlet to use it.

Overall, this speaker feels very sturdy and solid, which is great for listening on the go. It's covered in silicone, which the manufacturer says helps with impact resistance. A metal grille in front protects the drivers inside. The USB port is protected by a tight rubber seal, and rubber feet on the bottom and back of the speaker help to hold it in place, whether standing up or laying on its back. The nylon strap feels cheap, but it's still sturdy enough to hold if you attach it to your bag or backpack.

On top of the speaker, there are some simple-to-use controls. You can power the speaker on/off, adjust the volume, and turn on the Xtra Bass preset from the control. The play/pause button lets you skip to different tracks and answer/end phone calls, and you can hold it down to activate the voice assistant. Holding the Bluetooth pairing button lets you pair to another compatible speaker. The buttons are backlit for easier use in low-light settings, and there's some audible feedback to let you know when you've turned the device on and off. Plus, the power button blinks red to tell you when the battery is low and white to let you know you've reached max volume.

• Soundcore Motion 300 speaker
• Manuals
• USB-C to USB-C charging cable (length: 23 in / 58.4 cm)

The Anker Soundcore Motion 300 has middling frequency response accuracy. Its balanced response in the mid-range means that it reproduces voices and lead instruments with accuracy and clarity. However, the underemphasis in the treble leads to a dull sound. As with most small speakers, it can't bring the deep rumble in the low-bass, which is especially noticeable in genres like EDM and hip-hop.

While our results represent the speaker's performance on its Soundcore Signature preset, we also tested the speaker's performance with its other presets, as you can see here. The Xtra Bass preset adds more punch in the high-bass, while the Voice preset emphasizes the treble. The Soundcore Signature and Balanced presets fall somewhere in between. You can play with the different modes to find which you like best or use the graphic EQ for a custom sound.

The Anker Soundcore Motion 300 is designed for audio playback in three orientations: standing up, lying down, and hanging from its strap. Its Smart Tune feature automatically adjusts the speaker's output based on the orientation, so you don't have to turn this feature on to use it. Our results represent the speaker standing up, which is how we figure most will use it. It plays stereo sound in this orientation and also when it's lying on its back. However, when it's hanging, it downmixes stereo sound to mono. It's a front-facing speaker that doesn't bring consistent sound from all angles like a 360-degree speaker, though its directivity is likely to slightly improve if it's lying on its back.

This speaker is small, and still, it's loud enough to fill an average-sized living room with sound. There's some compression as you push it to max volume, though.

The manufacturer advertises a 13-hour battery life, which isn't far from the 11.5 hours we measured in our tests. Different settings you use, like the EQ preset and the volume level, can impact its battery performance. If you want to save battery, you can set the speaker to automatically power off after five, ten, twenty, or sixty minutes of inactivity through the Soundcore app.

Pairing your smartphone to the speaker lets you use the voice assistant through that smartphone. It works with Siri and Google Assistant, and while Alexa appears as an option on a paired smartphone, we couldn't get this assistant to respond to our commands. Through this speaker, Google Assistant can hear your commands clearly from far away and in noisy settings. Siri's performance with this speaker is a little worse, though.

The Soundcore app has many features to enhance your listening experience. First, you can use its Smart Tune feature to adjust the speaker's sound based on its orientation. Smart Tune automatically works if you use the EQ presets, and you can also set custom EQs for each orientation if you prefer. You can also use the app to set the auto-off timer, change the button brightness, and switch between different audio codecs. You can't control the voice prompts, but you can adjust the sounds made as the speaker turns on and off or pairs to another device over Bluetooth. While you can't use the app to stereo pair, you can do it manually by holding down the Bluetooth button on the second speaker. See a video of the app in action here.

There's a USB-C port to charge the speaker, but that's it.

This Bluetooth-compatible speaker pairs to up to two devices at the same time. It supports various codecs over Bluetooth, including SBC, AAC, and LDAC. LDAC allows for higher-resolution audio playback with certain apps like Tidal, and the manufacturer recommends turning it on if possible. This codec only works with compatible Android 8.0 or later devices, though, and it increases power consumption and reduces overall playtime. Our latency measurements represent the more commonly available SBC codec, and while they're on the higher side, it's important to note that some apps compensate for latency differently.